


Gossip

by hyperion



Series: Fight [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 11:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperion/pseuds/hyperion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur gets the rumor mill started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gossip

“What happened to you?” Cobb asked.

Arthur had known it was coming. He had come up with an explanation for it, and while it wasn’t as airtight as he would have liked, he thought it would work. Eames would be late like he was every day so Arthur could set things in motion, office gossip would fill in most of the details on its own, and no one would want to get involved, so there wouldn’t be many questions.

“Got into a fight,” Arthur said.

Cobb looked him over again. Arthur’s palm was bandaged from the scrapes caused by the bricks, and his left cheek and brow were bruised and abraded. It wasn’t exactly fight wounds, but if Cobb assumed that Arthur ended up shoved into a wall, he wouldn’t be far off.

“You should see the other guy,” Arthur said as he walked over to his desk and unpacked his laptop.

Ariadne asked about it when she arrived and got the same answer. So did Yusuf. He could see them across the warehouse whispering to each other. They had accepted his answer too easily, and that made him anxious. Cobb knew that Arthur had shut him down, and that meant that no amount of asking would get an answer. However, that had never stopped Ariadne or Yusuf before.

Finally, Eames came strolling in, gait easy and uncaring. Arthur covertly watched Cobb, Ariadne, and Yusuf react. Cobb took a good look at Eames, who was sporting a swollen and heavily bruised lip, a black eye, and bandaged knuckles, and frowned so hard it looked like his face was trying to eat itself. Ariadne gasped scandalously, and Yusuf eyes widened and mouth gaped. They watched as Eames placed a cup of coffee on Arthur’s desk with a smirk and a, “Good morning, pet.”

“Morning,” Arthur said, smirking back but for an entirely different reason. As soon as Eames turned his back on Arthur, Ariadne and Yusuf scrambled to the other side of the warehouse again, whispering and looking over their shoulders at Eames and Arthur.

Everyone would assume that the two men had gotten into a fistfight the night before and that Eames came off on the bad end of it. Soon Ariadne’s and Yusuf’s willpower would break and they would be pestering Eames about it or, maybe better, they would come to the conclusion that Eames was the aggressor and give him the cold shoulder.

That should make up for Eames’ taunting the previous night.


End file.
